Watch Out! The Literati Have "Jumped The Shark!" Now Can We Throw Out The Cliche?

Who could have imagined way back in 1977 when The Fonz waterskiied over a shark that we would be perpetually evoking the image three decades later? (If you haven’t seen it, activate YouTube on this post’s ‘permalink!’) Yes, Fonzie was the man of the moment, hip in his black leather jacket and uttering his "Heeeey!" slanguage. But it’s three fucking decades after Jimmy Carter was president! And the phrase "jumped the shark" has never been more popular and in danger of losing its relevance.

Why now? Maybe its usage confers some underground hipness: you have to be really plugged in to know what the fuck the writer’s talking about.

Yet the constant reference is becoming repetitive and boring, sort of like when the least popular kid in class mimics the alpha kids. And no matter how widely the term is used, how perfectly snarky it sounds, aren’t there less cliched if not more clever ways in which to convey the same meaning?

The subject/show/celebrity has ‘cracked’? Lost their shine? Lost their mind? Become desperate? Gone mad? Deviated from the story line? Lost wind in the culture’s zeitgeist? Fucking gone daft! Gone "Britney?" Cracked?

Though that last phrase carries its own ambiguous meaning, at least it’s of the moment. We love the fact that there’s a "Jump The Shark"website. We just think that it should hold exclusive rights to the phrase.